Niobites

Niobites is the name of a party of Alexandrian Monophysites formed under the leadership of an Alexandrian rhetorician or sophist named Stephen Niobes (Νιόβης or Νιόβος), who attempted to revive the older Monophysite doctrine in opposition to the modified form of it maintained by Damian, Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria (A.D. 570-603), who belonged to the school of Severus and the Phthartolatrae (q.v.). The particular opinion brought forward by the Niobites was that the qualities belonging, to human nature could not continue in the human nature of Christ after its amalgamation with or absorption into the divine nature. He thus took up the position that there was no logical ground for the Severian. compromise between orthodoxy and Monophysitism, and that the Jacobites ought to revert to the creed which they held before Severus came to Egypt — that which Dioscorus had maintained in opposition to the Council of Chalcedon. The Niobite party was driven out of Alexandria by Damian after the death of Niobes, and settled at Antioch, where, before the death of Damian, they gradually came around to the orthodox opinions, and became energetic supporters of the Chalcedonian doctrine. See Assemani, Biblioth. Orient, 2:72; Baur, Gesch. der Dreieinigkeitslehre, 2:92-95; Neander, Ch. Hist. 2:554.